Possibly as a start to the retribution sought by the “pinko liberals” of Hollywood for the Russians tampering in the now notorious U.S. election of 2016, Red Sparrow serves as the first spy movie of 2018, making no bones about the old go-to stereotypes for why Americans just can’t trust those flighty Russians with all their arbitrary double-crossing. Though 2017 gave us the likes of Atomic Blonde as a “badass female spy” genre piece in the middle of summer, it was instead set in Berlin during the Cold War of the 1980s with Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) offering a far calmer, cooler, more collected delivery of the subterfuge-happy heroine.
Red Sparrow, though just as frothy as the aforementioned, does its best not to be, taking itself far more seriously–with use of Tchaikovsky as part of the soundtrack to further attempt to convince you of its austerity. For as 2018 continues to find the U.S. evermore enmeshed in the consequences of Russian political intertwinings, director Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer–though he did also direct her in the Hunger Games series) and screenwriter Justin Haythe bring us face to face with our present and once again tense and tenuous relations with Russia. And though quite a bit of time has passed since the height of our simultaneous contention and collaboration with the country that served as a key player in the toppling of Nazi Germany during World War II, we still haven’t seen fit to do away with the old cliches about the nation that so few U.S. citizens have even deigned to visit. Which is precisely why Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is a ballerina who attracts the favor of ogling men that come to watch the show, including a politician named Dimitri Ustinov (Kristof Konrad), who will become an unexpected part of Dominika’s fate after her leg is broken while dancing onstage (in what is just the first in an endless series of gruesome and grisly visuals).
Just as it is in American society, Dominika is only useful because she is “seen” by men in power, underestimating her in their belief that she can be swapped and bartered around like a whorish pawn. This is, most of all and worst of all, how her high-up in the government uncle, Ivan Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts), views her, preying on her emotional and financial distress post-leg injury by enlisting her for a task that will ultimately put her between a rock and a hard place with regard to entering Sparrow School, which is, in essence, a glorified institution for how to be the most psychologically effective minx. Knowing that she will consent to going to “whore school,” as she calls it, because she needs to ensure her ailing mother, Nina (Joely Richardson), is taken care of, Ivan wastes no time in shuffling her along through the processes that will get her to the top of Sparrow operations.
Upon arriving at the quintessentially oppressive in its Russianness–a grey, utilitarian design, to boot–school she is “greeted” (though corralled might be a better word) by a terse, stern woman who says simply, “You can call me Matron.” It is in that instant you know Charlotte Rampling is the best thing about this movie. As the Matron, she has plenty of matter-of-fact teachings and isms to impart, including the most repeated, and therefore important, one of all, “Every human is a puzzle of need. Find that need and become the missing puzzle piece. They’ll give you anything you want.”
Over the intensive course, American audiences are exposed to not only more uncomfortable sexual scenes than they’re accustomed to (don’t worry though, they will be, in true American fashion, outweighed by scenes of violence), but also the notion that Russians only use their sexuality (if you can find them out of their many layers of clothing at all) for the purposes of manipulation. Another cliche that apparently needed to be iterated in the United States under “control” of Trump.
Despite a few snafus (if you can call attempted rape a “snafu”) over the period of Dominika’s instruction, her first assignment is a significant one, sanctioned even by the influential if not skeptical of Dominika’s “talents,” General Vladimir Andreievich Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons–again, there isn’t a single Russian in this movie playing the part of a Russian).
With her mark–CIA operative Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton)–given, Dominika flies to Budapest under the name Katya–another detail that provides an example of prosaism with regard to the American presentation of Russians. It is there that she, of course, starts to become too emotionally involved with the man she’s supposed to help serve up to her State. And as her web of lies and shifting protections start to get too intricate, she begins to question her loyalties. However, as with all spy movies, don’t get it twisted: the spy is loyal only to herself.
As Dominika’s U.S. entwinement becomes more of a significant plot point, Haythe takes the opportunity to seize upon making fun of American incompetence at the government level as well, with Mary-Louise Parker in the role of a drunken, bumbling Chief of Staff to a senator, whose best attempt at intelligence is, “How is it that Russian women are so sexy and Russian men are such toads?”
So no, America isn’t depicted as wholly “good” the way it might have been in the propagandist World War II days, even being compared to a glorified version of Russia in its autocratic ways, but as “the mole” puts it to Dominika, “At least they have the aspiration of personal freedom.”
And while Haythe might try his best to persist in sustaining the perception of Russians as a people doomed and subjugated by their government with such lines as, “If you can’t serve any use to the State, we’ll put a bullet in your head,” the U.S. doesn’t feel that far behind from such extremism. Moreover, not to get all Lee Harvey Oswald, but Americans really have no concept of Russians other than the old chestnuts about them being a “shithole” country of spies, ballet, Tchaikovsky-playing, gross men, hot women and the more than occasional stiff drink.
The Hollywood machine of the U.S. might try its best to make Americans uphold their delusion that there is still a clear-cut line between “us versus them,” but that line, like democracy, so clearly doesn’t exist anymore. It’s every woman for herself, and that means no alliance is ironclad. Beaten to a pulp at one point in a manner that recalls the “Die Another Day” video, Dominika insists through it all, “I love my country.” These days, that’s kind of what Americans have to continue telling themselves in order to survive and get through what’s happening to them right now.
